


Rules of the Road

by Carmilla



Category: Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmilla/pseuds/Carmilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When they ran away together for the first time, Don was fifteen and Cosmo had just turned fourteen, and Cosmo's father had been teaching him to shake hands with city men."</p><p>Don and Cosmo, the travelling show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules of the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [id_ten_it](https://archiveofourown.org/users/id_ten_it/gifts).



> Content warning: 1920s attitudes. Vague references to homophobia, heteronormativity, one casual use of a misogynistic slur.

When they ran away together for the first time, Don was fifteen and Cosmo had just turned fourteen, and Cosmo's father had been teaching him to shake hands with city men. Cosmo had got Don to come over, grinning as usual but one giant nerve underneath it, and Don had looked at the dozen or so wallets and watches laid out neatly in Cosmo's room and hadn't known what to say.

 _Pop says I'm quick enough_ , Cosmo had said. _And you already know I can talk a guy half to death if I wanna distract him. But I dunno, Don_ – again that edgy little laugh – _this don't feel like my vocation to me, you know what I'm saying?_

Cosmo's Pop always had some scheme on the go, and he could be a vicious bastard if you crossed him when he thought he was onto a good thing. And he knew every bar, every motel, every crummy little dive in their crummy little town where they might run off to. And if Cosmo got caught with his hand in some rich guy's pocket, folks in charge weren't going to give a damn about any of that. Don had shrugged.

 _Well then, I guess we'd better get out of here_ , he said, and he thought, what the hell, I've been saying I wanna leave town, see the world.

So they'd taken the money from the wallets – enough to keep them going for a month or two, at least - and they'd caught a bus across state. Don left a letter for his folks and promised he'd keep writing. Cosmo just left the watches piled on his father's bed.

For a couple of years they moved with the migrant crop pickers, Florida to Maine and back again, other places if they heard the work was good. It kept them fed and mostly housed as well, and they picked up a trick or two on the way; Don polished up his natural charm 'til it shone as bright as his smile and Cosmo learned to mimic a new accent in every big farm they passed through. But they were pretty sure that this wasn't their vocation either. Coming up on year three, they'd been to maybe half the states there were, and wherever they went they could pick up some extra money if they could scrape together the energy at the end of the day to play a number or two at the local bar. They figured maybe that meant something.

And so, when Cosmo was just shy of seventeen, they'd run away together again, straight onto a stage, and they hadn't stopped running since.

~

There was one shared dressing room at The Temple for everyone not at the top of the bill, and it was pokey, underlit and as warm and muggy as a hothouse. Cosmo, fighting his way through clouds of face powder and squeezing between a baritone belting warm-up tunes and a nervous-looking juggler counting his props, was just grateful that the management hadn't tried to quarter the trained mule in here as well. He made it to a chair by the mirrors, removed a pair of oversize feather fans from the seat and folded himself into it with a hiss.

By the time he'd removed his stage make-up and changed into a more sensible suit and his legs still hadn't stopped shaking, he had to admit it to himself – he was probably actually sick, not just suffering from the heat of the stage lights and the dressing room. And tonight it was his turn to sleep on the floor; he and Don had never been able to spring for a twin room. Well, this was gonna be fun.

As if the universe had cued him in, Don appeared, arm in arm with a dame who probably owned the fans, judging by what she was wearing. More like what she _wasn't_ wearing, golly.

“Cosmo! Katy here wants to show us how to have a good time in this town. You ready to burn some midnight oil?”

Typical Don; only their second night here and the burlesque girls were already telling him to use their real names. Katy was a sight for sore eyes, alright, plenty of jelly up top and gams that went all the way down to the ground. Another night Cosmo would have been very happy breathing smoke in some cramped little speakeasy with her squashed up between him and Don, and all of them flirting like there was actually some doubt about who she was going home with.

“Can't do it, Don, I'm sorry. I think I'm coming down with something. Better catch some sleep while I can.”

Don looked concerned, but Cosmo waved him off. Don turned away, slapped himself on the forehead and spun back round again.

“Oh yeah, are you happy to move on at the end of the week? Some guy called Montresor's asked us to come fill his song-and-dance slot – three months, and the money's better than here.”

“Sure thing, Don.” Don turned away again; Cosmo's comic instincts got the better of him.

“Oh Do-on!” he called out, watched Don spin around again, and then pulled him in by the lapel so he could murmur in his ear. “Make sure the nice lady takes you home with her. If you're going out without me I'm definitely having the bed!”

Don grinned and nodded, and Cosmo told him to go on out there and have a swell time.

The funny thing was that he actually meant it, even though there was a cold, mean thing in him that didn't like it when Don snaked his arm around the dancer's waist and pulled her snug against him. But hell, you don't have to have everything you want to be happy, right? Tonight he got to sleep on a real bed for the second night in a row, and soon they'd have a brand new gig, and that was plenty. There was a spring in his step, if not quite a song in his heart, as he headed back to the motel; and if it was a slightly wobbly spring, well, Cosmo's life was like that.

~

“What.”

Don's voice was cold enough that it wasn't really a question. Trouble. If you riled him up he'd just crack wise at you but when he got really mad he got like this, chilly, contained, quiet.

“I'm sorry, kid,” said Mr Montresor (check suit, slicked-back hair, about as Italian as Cosmo's Aunt Betty). He didn't look sorry. “If you'd turned up four hours ago I'd've been happy to give you the job, but the bill's full now and there's nothing to be done about it.”

“Four hours ago,” Don gritted out, “we were on a goddamn bus, which we'd been on since eight in the _goddamn morning_ , because you told us you wanted us here.”

“So I did. You've got a great little act, you're better tappers than the Carlisle brothers, but the fact is that they turned up at eleven and if I can fill up my bill before I eat lunch then you can bet I will. Better for my ulcers that way.” Montresor smiled in what he probably thought was an avuncular way. “No hard feelings, hey kid? It's just the rules of the road - first come, first served.”

Don looked like if the guy called him 'kid' one more time he might just send him flying, so Cosmo slipped an arm through his and turned them about face, calling out a cheery “Thanks for your time!” to the greasy little slug as he marched Don out of range.

“It's the vaudeville _circuit_ , remember?” he said in his ear. “You want Mr Mount-the-Whore to be bearing a grudge the next time we come around here?”

“I want him to fall into an open sewer and drown.”

“Well, we could go booby trap the sewers round the theatre,” said Cosmo thoughtfully, “but with our luck we'd probably catch a passing ballerina instead.”

“I wouldn't mind catching a passing ballerina.”

“Even if she's covered in sewage?” - and this time Don gave him a proper laugh.

~

Cosmo had volunteered to go find them a friendly-looking hedgerow to sleep under – they had money for a motel or a bus out of there, not both, and they couldn't stay if there wasn't any work. Don had the oddest expression when he looked at him, and he kept looking at him, or rather more _through_ him, for a minute, then said 'Sure' and sloped off into town.

When he came back half an hour later, he'd bought them a room for the night _and_ their bus tickets.

Cosmo teased him about what he'd done to get the money all the way to the motel – cheated at cards? rented his body out to a wealthy widow? - but it wasn't until they were getting settled in that he saw the telltale strip of pale skin on Don's wrist.

“Don, you sold your watch?”

Don only looked kinda sheepish.

“Your father got that watch for you.”

Don shrugged.

“You didn't need to do that! Why didncha tell me? I could have hustled pool or something. And did you give enough thought to the wealthy widow option?”

“Cosmo, you don't know hustling from nothing. Last time you tried to hustle pool, you made a grand total of six dollars from the first two guys and the third one won it all back from you.”

“He got lucky.”

“They're not supposed to be able to get that lucky if you're hustling them, that's what I'm _saying_. Anyway, you sold that old cigarette case of your pop's the first year after we left home, didncha?”

“Yeah, but that was me - you _like_ your old man!” said Cosmo hotly, and he hadn't meant to be funny but suddenly Don was disolved in giggles, and then of course so was he.

“Look,” Don said, when he'd just about got his breath back, “you were sick last week, I couldn't let you sleep outside. And Mr. Montresor felt bad enough about dragging us out here that he was happy to buy it off me.”

“I just bet he was.”

“C'mon, what would I do if my meal ticket took a fever and died, hey? Not much demand around for half a double act.”

He sounded sincere enough that Cosmo had to laugh.

“You're the talent here, Don. You'd do fine.”

“I wouldn't.”

That look was back on Don's face again, and Cosmo hadn't the foggiest idea what it meant.

“Cosmo, you know you – you know I – I'm so _bad_ at this!”

And suddenly they were kissing, and Cosmo's brain was kinda blown, because even when he'd let himself think about it he'd never dreamed that Don would _kiss_ him. Maybe a woman between them. Maybe a drunken evening, maybe a shared bed, maybe a few sticky, panting minutes and a lot of denial the next day. But not this; not Don wrapping his arms around him to hold him close, threading his fingers through the hair at Cosmo's nape, kissing him tenderly and insistently and endlessly.

“I dunno,” Cosmo panted as they broke apart, and it came out a little husky, “you don't seem too bad at it to me.” Don rolled his eyes, and kissed him again, and Cosmo decided to shut up and get kissed.

~

Don woke up the next morning with a crick in his neck, his back cold because the blanket hadn't quite covered them both, his limbs awkwardly tangled in Cosmo's skinnier ones, and Cosmo crooning 'Swanee - how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old swaneeeeee!' in his ear at a pitch precisely calculated to cause him the maximum amount of irritation, and he called himself ten kinds of idiot for not having done this sooner.

~

The theatre was on their way to the bus station. They'd walked a few yards past it when Cosmo suddenly said 'Hold on for a second' and dived inside. A few minutes later he reappeared in the doorway.

“Absolutely, Mr. Montresor, no hard feelings, and I very much hope we get the chance to work with you some other time. You have a great day now!” And Cosmo pumped the guy's hand enthusiastically, his other hand going to cover Montresor's wrist.

Don didn't know whether to laugh or to yell at him.

In the end he did neither, and they headed off to the station and sat together in silence until the bus was a few miles clear of the city. Then Cosmo fished around in his pocket and handed over the watch.

“Guess my Pop had to be useful for something eventually.”

“I guess so.”

More silence. Don did up the buckle, and ran his fingers over the smooth, worn leather of the strap. He really would've missed that watch.

“Guess we're not going back to work for Mr. Montresor any time soon.”

“I guess not, Don.”

And then they were laughing again, and that was that done with.

~

The crowds at Harry and Dean's Music Hall really seemed to eat them up; they were only sharing a dressing room with two other acts. Cosmo was alone when Don stuck his head in.

“The girls from the kickline want to take us out for the night. You coming?”

Cosmo wasn't sure what showed on his face just then, but Don slid into the room, shut the door, and leaned on it.

“Or we could head back to our motel. That could be a good time too.”

There was a note of apology in his voice. Cosmo grinned at him.

“C'mon Don, you know I love to hit the town with a pack of beautiful women who only have eyes for you. Maybe when you pick one the others'll be so disappointed they'll just fall into my lap, all in a heap.”

He waggled his eyebrows; Don didn't look reassured. Hell, if they were going to talk about this, they might as well do it properly.

“Look Don, someday you're gonna meet some swell dame, one that's worth staying in the same town for, and she's gonna love me almost as much as she loves you because you may be the looks of this operation but I'm the laughs. And maybe she'll have a friend, or a sister, or maybe I'll just hang around your house all hours and teach your children to play the piano and curse like sailors, and either way it'll be fine.”

He bit back the jokes, so Don could see he really meant it. “It'd be hard, just the two of us. I don't want your life to be that kind of hard.”

Don nodded, slowly.

“So, night on the town, then?”

“Ab-so-lutely. Oh, Don?” - as Don was opening the door - “If none of them take your fancy, or mine, perhaps we could - y'know -  turn in early?”

“Sure thing,” Don said, “I'd like that.” And he smiled his knock-'em-dead-in-the-aisles smile, just for Cosmo.


End file.
